Nathan Hale School

Hi, my name is Hargurjit Grewal and I am very excited to start my 9th year as a bilingual Punjabi teacher at Nathan Hale School. I am looking forward to a year of learning and fun.

  Let me take this as an opportunity to tell you something about the Bilingual Punjabi Program. Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with students’ level of language.  The English-language acquisition is emphasized in a bilingual program with linguistic and cultural maintenance. Using native language to understand the content actually gives them a distinct academic advantage throughout life. There are also cultural benefits to children learning two languages together. The bilingual program shows students a broader world-view, whatever the native language of the student, and leads to greater opportunities for collaborative learning. The main purpose of the bilingual program is to teach English as soon as possible and integrate the children into the mainstream of education transition to the mainstream and maintenance of the native culture are both important. With literacy in one's own language, literacy develops in the second language. To maintain students native language and culture we do teach Punjabi as a language once a week.

I enjoy teaching my bilingual Punjabi students working as push - in teachers which gives me an opportunity to clear the content right there during the lesson, while supporting native language and other bilingual resources as needed. To achieve the goal of bilingual education, I use SIOP strategies to execute my instructions. Please feel free to contact me at hgrewal@carteretschools.org if you have any questions.